![]() The list of possible symptoms is broad, and can include fatigue, anxiety, and altered smell.Įarly attempts to track the prevalence of long Covid in children often followed a straightforward setup: Researchers would contact the families of kids who had tested positive for Covid-19 weeks or months earlier and ask how they were feeling. Those symptoms, the WHO definition adds, “generally have an impact on everyday functioning.” In February, the World Health Organization issued an official definition for what it terms “post Covid-19 condition in children and adolescents.” The category applies to symptoms that last at least two months, and that first appear within three months of a Covid-19 infection. While the term “long Covid” can conjure up images of debilitating fatigue, it technically refers to a range of conditions. “Anybody with any experience with children and SARS-CoV-2 knows very clearly that it’s not one in four children,” said Ladhani. (Although there are also debates over the frequency of long Covid in adults, severe Covid-19 is much rarer in kids, and many experts say that applies to long Covid as well.) In the months since, thousands of researchers have turned their attention to long Covid in adults - and, to a lesser extent, in children. “Never in a million years could I imagine that four months later our bodies are still trying to recover,” one parent told Undark at the time, describing the ongoing symptoms both she and her 7-year-old son were experiencing. In a story for Undark published in September 2020, Doherty reported on more than two dozen children who were experiencing lasting symptoms after apparent Covid-19 infections, including lingering fever and fatigue. journalists to document lasting Covid symptoms in children. ![]() I n the early months of the pandemic, writer Megan E. “And we do not see the long Covid that is being portrayed from the media and the social media.” “We’re measuring Covid and transmission in schools,” said Ladhani. The issue could have clinical implications, too: Some pediatricians worry that providers will turn too quickly to long Covid as a diagnosis - and, in the process, overlook other conditions that are the actual cause of some kids’ symptoms.Īmid that uncertainty, some researchers suggest their colleagues have produced estimates that overstate the risks. Some researchers and public health experts have suggested it may also have implications for public policy. The answer could affect how parents judge the risks of Covid-19. Still, the topic has been a focus of ongoing study in both adults and children, and the outcome can produce wide-ranging views of the pandemic’s effects on kids: Is long Covid in children a silent epidemic? A challenging but very rare condition? Or something in between? Patient advocates have sometimes bristled at questions about the frequency of long Covid, suggesting that such a narrow view can miss the suffering behind the numbers. But the question is: How many? Three years into the pandemic, the discrepancies in experts’ answers reflect the ongoing challenge of defining and tracking a little-understood condition. Ladhani and other researchers agree it’s clear that some children struggle with long-lasting symptoms after having Covid-19. George’s Hospital in London and a collaborator on a major British government-funded study of long Covid in children. ![]() “Anybody with any experience with children and SARS-CoV-2 knows very clearly that it’s not one in four children,” said Shamez Ladhani, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at St. Other experts, often reviewing similar data, have reached sharply different conclusions. If those estimates are accurate, roughly 16 million children in the U.S. ![]()
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